Days Will Run Away
by TracyCook
Summary: It's the end of the world, how will they survive? Bamon romance fic. Bonnie/Damon
1. Everyone's Underground

**Days Will Run Away**

By: Tracy Cook

Disclaimer: I own nothing. These characters belong to the creators of Vampire Diaries.

Couple: Bonnie/Damon

Rating: M

Warning : This fic will have lots of murder and violence and smut!

Author's Note : _This fic will not have vampires in it! It will be completely AU and based off of the plot of the video game Fallout 4! I will definitely change around a lot of things, dialogue, some setting stuff, romantic stuff, etc. I liked the concept of the game and I really just want to turn it into a fic! This will feature other characters, but the main pairing will be Bamon._

 **Chapter One**

 **Everyone's Underground**

 _ **'The days will run away**_

 _ **Before you know it.'**_

 _'Frostbitten fingertips curled and twitched against the small glass window. A thin layer of ice spread clear across every inch of caramel skin. Slowly melting. With each second that passed, she could feel the air rushing back into her lungs. Could feel her muscles spasm and twitch. Eyes frozen over, crystals clinging to long eyelashes as they slowly parted._

 _Vision distorted._

 _She forced a few difficult blinks before gazing across the room in horror. Sheila Bennett, her beautiful baby girl was curled up in her own containment vessel. The ten year old was blinking wildly and gasping for breath as she reached for the window, trying to escape._

 _Poor girl was scared to death._

 _'What-what's going on?' Bonnie thought to herself, trying to recall how they had gotten into this situation. Her memory foggy and fragmented._

 _The last thing she could remember was that day.'_

All the pieces of the puzzle seemed to be coming together finally. After years of serving in the military and fighting for their Country, both of them had been relieved of their duty and free to finally live the war-free life they'd always wanted.

Ten years.

That was how much time she'd missed from her own daughter's life.

It wasn't that she or her husband had a choice in the matter. They'd been fighting the war so that Sheila could have a peaceful upbringing. So that she could grow up into a world where she wouldn't have to fear for her life every second of every day.

Every person in the United States had been required to serve a minimum of ten years in the military after the age of eighteen.

Fortunately, that law had been dropped after the war concluded.

Sheila Bennett would never have to learn how to wield a gun.

"This is so nice." Bonnie hummed against his chest, fingers curling deep in the thin fabric of his shirt and tugging him even closer. Now that she had him consistently in her life, she never wanted to let him go. "Just the three of us."

"Don't leave out Stefan, love. It might hurt his feelings." Kol teased, gently stroking his fingers down the woman's spine. Feeling her arching desperately into his touch.

She laughed at how insane that sounded. "You know he can't feel."

"Seems to have Sheila fooled." The British man nodded in the direction of their daughter and the robot playing with her.

Bonnie rolled slightly and glanced over her shoulder at their baby girl and Stefan. The two were playing a game of checkers and the ten year old had a smile on her face that could light up the world. Through her naive eyes she saw the man as nothing more than that. A man.

During the war mothers had complained about needing to stay home and take care of their children. They couldn't just leave them to fend for themselves, right?

So, the government had come up with a solution.

An invention they called Hybrids.

Commercials promoted them as "not man" and "not machine." A combination of the two. Something programmed to show compassion and take care of your children while you were away. Designed to look identical to humans. To this day it baffled Bonnie that hiding beneath such realistic looking skin were circuits and wires.

Stefan had eyes of a human. His voice was not electronic. He _seemed_ to have feelings.

"Oh, would you look at that. You beat me again mistress Sheila."

"You'd think you'd be able to beat a ten year old girl, uncle Stefan." The child stated pointedly, with a mocking lilt in her tone.

"Maybe if that ten year old wasn't a little genius."

Sheila laughed and her smile stretched from one ear to the other as her uncle complimented her. She pushed herself to her feet and moved toward Stefan, wrapping her arms tight around his shoulders and knocking their heads together. "Or maybe you just suck at this game."

"Maybe." He smiled and knocked their heads again.

Even what he'd just done for her daughter. There was something so incomprehensibly human about it. The way he let the young girl win just to spare her feelings. His smile and the kind sparkle in his eyes. It constantly made Bonnie doubt what she knew about artificial intelligence.

"Bon." Kol nudged her side to get her attention, drawing it back to the television. They'd been watching one of the new episodes of 'I Love Lucy,' only now the screen had gone black and there was a warning scrolling across the top.

A loud buzzing noise emitting from the speakers.

She recognized the sound and it caused her heart to drop into her stomach. Skin burning hot and breathing becoming hard. As if there were something crushing her chest. They'd only been out of the war for half a year. Half a year of peace and quiet and normalcy and already the war was starting up again.

"We interrupt your scheduled programming to alert you of suspicious behavior."

Bonnie pushed away from her husband and started to stand to her feet. Madly dragging fingers through dark hair and looking around the room. Stefan looked confused and Sheila frightened as she clung to him. In a way it hurt. Having her own daughter cling to a robot instead of running to her, but she knew her baby looked to him as a parent. He'd raised her.

"We have reason to believe that our town might be in line of nuclear threat. All people are advised to move to the vault until further notice."

The Vault. AKA a city underground with all your earthly commodities. Or so they claimed. None of the civilians had actually been inside as of yet. It was invented as a backup plan in case the war broke out again.

"Stefan, gather our things."

Years of preparing for this meant the Mikaelson family had a plan. Stefan was to gather all of the necessities they needed for the vault and they were to head there as fast as physically possible. Bonnie moved to gather her daughter protectively into her arms before looking to Kol to lead the way.

He did just that. Starting out the front door and climbing in to start the car while his wife buckled Sheila into the car-seat.

Stefan rushed out of the house with their things in his hands, packing them into the trunk, strands of hair twisting in the wind. He looked too real to simply leave behind. Bonnie was attached, they all were, he was coming with them.

 _ **'And the days will run away before you know it**_

 _ **The lights will dim, the earth shakes, and the whole thing disappears'**_

"I said, no Hybrids allowed in the vault!" The man guarding entrance into the underground facility insisted, pushing Stefan back and allowing another family to go through.

"We aren't just leaving him out here to die!" Bonnie insisted stubbornly, glancing over at the humanistic machine carrying their things in his arms. He had a look of desperation on his face. Eyes pleading with her not to be left behind.

Robot or not, he had feelings. She couldn't just let him be killed.

"He's not a man! He can't die!" The guard reminded. "You and your family on the other hand can. Are you really gonna risk your daughter's life for this thing?"

"Don't call him that!"

"It's what he is."

Before Bonnie had a chance to further protest, Stefan was setting down the things on the ground and taking a step back. The last thing he wanted was to be the reason his family didn't get into the vault. Despite popular belief, he did have feelings. Whether those were manufactured or real was up to interpretation, but they existed.

"Just leave me behind master Kol and mistress Bonnie."

"Stefan." Bonnie muttered the word solemnly. She knew that if it came down to it she would have no choice but to put her baby girl first, but she couldn't fathom the thought of leaving him behind. After all he'd done for her and her family. How could she abandon him?

Even if he didn't feel physical pain, he would be destroyed.

"I was built to protect you and your family and that is what I want to do." Stefan said with a sad smile gracing his lips as he took a step toward the woman cradling Sheila in her arms. The poor girl looked devastated as she reached for her uncle.

"You can't stay out here, uncle Stefan! It's not safe!" She cried.

"Mistress Sheila." He spoke calmly and lovingly, reaching out to delicately trace his fingertips along her cheek. "I will miss you most of all. But, I'll be okay out here."

"You and your family needs to move it along or move out of line! This is an emergency!" The guard shouted. His tone wasn't so much an angry one as it was frightened. Considering the situation Bonnie couldn't even blame him.

Heart hammering painfully against her rib-cage, she gave one final sorrowful look to Stefan before whispering the word, "Sorry."

"Don't be." He said with a genuine smile. "I'll miss you guys."

"Get in or get out!"

Bonnie apologized one final time before she was rushing through the gates toward the vault with Sheila clinging tight to her. Even if deep down she knew that the man she'd left behind was only a machine, she couldn't shake the guilty feeling hanging over her conscience.

She couldn't think about that at the moment though. She had to keep going. For her husband and for her daughter.

"Stand on the lift!"

Bonnie and Kol did as instructed, standing on the circular lift with the other families. In a matter of seconds they would be carried down into the vault and who knew if they'd ever return to the surface? Some part of her hoped they would, but another knew even if they did the world would never be the same as it was now.

Nuclear bombs would destroy everything that was left. Everyone they once knew and the town they loved. Stefan. Everything would be gone.

Some of the civilians were complaining. Telling them to hurry up. Scared to death that they weren't going to make it in time. Others were sending up prayers to the Lord. Bonnie was sending up prayers to her Grams. Asking her to protect them and Stefan somehow.

She nearly lost her footing when the platform started to rumble beneath their feet and lower into the ground. Inch by inch. It was moving at a taunting speed, especially when they could see the mushroom cloud forming in the distance.

A bomb had been dropped and the aftermath was headed right for them.

Wind tussling hair and threatening to knock them over. Shrapnel plummeting toward them. Branches off trees, car doors, and then that wall of energy was just about to hit them. Everyone who hadn't made it onto the lift this turn would undoubtedly disintegrate.

 _ **'Saw the whole scene slowly dissolve**_

 _ **Nobody wins'**_

"We must ask that you and your family step into these separate pods." When Bonnie and Kol looked hesitant the assistant further explained, "It's procedure upon entering the vault. This should decontaminate you and rinse you of any radiation you might have encountered on the surface. I promise you it is entirely safe and only takes a few seconds."

 _'They said it was only gonna take a few seconds.' The thought floated around absently inside of her frozen skull as green eyes were fixed on her daughter in the pod across from her. Ice thawing on her small fragile body. Water dripping from the tip of her nose._

 _She looked like a little ice princess._

 _A group of men abruptly came into Bonnie's view. All armed with guns, looking prepared to kill whoever got in their way. Men on a mission and she wondered what that mission could be?_

 _They answered her question when they opened Sheila's pod and withdrew the shivering young girl. One man slung her broken body over his shoulder and turned to the others to say, "Check the backup!"_

 _Bonnie tried to wiggle out of her confines._

 _Tried to pound her fists against the door of the pod and break free as they carried her baby off to God knows where. Screaming at the top of her lungs until she could taste blood in her raw throat. Tears rolling down frozen cheeks and sticking to skin. She just needed to get out of there. She needed to save Sheila._

 _Another man looked through the window directly into her terrified eyes._

 _"The backup looks safe, sir!"_

 _ **'Nobody wins.'**_

 **Author's Note :**

 **This first chapter is a little short, mostly I wanna see if anyone is interested in this idea! Hopefully y'all like it and please leave reviews and input to help push me along! It's been a while since I've had inspiration, so I really hope it's good! Thank you so much for reading! Should I continue? What do y'all think is gonna happen next? ALSO Damon will be in the next chapter!**

 **I love y'all!**

 **-Tracy Cook-**


	2. Masks

**Days Will Run Away**

By: Tracy Cook

Disclaimer: I own nothing. These characters belong to the creators of Vampire Diaries.

Couple: Bonnie/Damon

Rating: M

Warning : This fic will have lots of murder and violence and smut!

Author's Note : _This fic will not have vampires in it! It will be completely AU and based off of the plot of the video game Fallout 4!_

 **Chapter Two**

 **Masks**

 _ **'I love the way they tell us, this is who you should be.**_

 _ **We put our faces on...just like a mask.'**_

Blue eyes snapped wide open. Panic set in as he tried to look around, tried to move his neck, tried to feel his body. He couldn't feel _anything_. He ventured to lift his fingers like he once had, only they didn't move. Mind foggy and memories vague.

Had he fallen and hit his head? Did he have a concussion? Was he paralyzed?

 _'What the hell is going on?'_

"His skin is almost ready, sir."

"Good, make sure it fits the model before you put it on. We don't need another defect."

His skin? What were these people talking about? Damon listened closely to the foreign voices as they continued to explain what they were doing. Interlaced with the sounds of machinery in the background. Metal grinding against metal. Hammers, gears, and drills playing in an orchestra around them.

"All that's left is the face."

"This is the most important part." The other man insisted, "If the seams don't stretch around the model and connect, then people will be able to tell what he is."

Damon went to furrow his brow in confusion at the statements, but it appeared he couldn't do that either. He couldn't feel his face. All he could do was sit and gape in horror as the men lifted up something that looked like a mask-a mask of his own face.

Flesh that imitated flesh so closely no one could ever tell the difference.

He could see the pores dancing along the skin. Slight flaws and imperfections he recognized from the mirror. And then the mask was being flipped around and what he saw left him sick to his stomach _. If he even had a stomach still_.

Veins and blood and cartilage. Holes where the eyes should be.

That was when it registered. This wasn't a mask made of rubber bought at some Halloween costume shop. What they were holding up was authentic skin. His skin carved from his own face and placed on a "model," whatever that meant.

Skin was being draped over his face and molded into place. Connected and stitched up at the seams behind his ears and along his chin. Only, there seemed to be a problem because one of the men was shouting, "It isn't fitting!"

"Make it fit. You know how the boss gets when we have to throw out Hybrids."

 _'Hybrids?'_ Damon was perplexed when they used that word to describe him. He wasn't one of those _things_. He was a man. He'd been born and raised with a family. An absentee mother and an alcoholic father. A baby brother. He wasn't a robot.

"I think it looks good enough. Turn it on and we'll see."

One of the men moved behind him and started to fiddle around with something hidden beneath Damon's ear. Just like that, his skull was filling with a bright white light. It seemed to seep into his eyelids and fill his entire line of vission. Washing away the memories he had of his family. He suddenly couldn't recall what his brother's face looked like. His parents' names. He couldn't remember anything from his past life.

When the light dissipated he came to. Fully functional and capable of moving his body again.

He stretched his fingers out and lifted his hand, holding it up to look it over. Aside from a few stitches here and there, it looked just like a hand should. Fingers fitted onto a metal frame like a glove. He'd lost all sense of his previous humanity and now he knew what he was. A Hybrid. A machine. Curling his fingers came easily.

"This one isn't gonna pass inspection."

"There are only a few tears in the skin, he'll be fine."

One of the men turned to face him now. Looking him over closely. Examining every inch of his body before telling him, "Stand to your feet, Damon."

Damon furrowed his brow and this time he felt it. Skin bending to his will. It took a second to gather himself and remember how to stand without falling over, but after a few minutes of bracing himself, he was able to stand without any help.

He felt lost. Like a newborn baby being birthed into the world for the first time.

Incapable of understanding where he belonged or what he was. Was he man or was he machine? He had feelings. A heart hammering beneath his rib-cage like a man. His skin was real. Yet, his insides weren't that of a normal human.

"I think he'll pass."

Damon blinked a few times, feeling the moisture wet his eyeballs. Sounds solely background music to his own situation. Taking his first steps were difficult and clumsy, but he caught on faster than a child. And then he was catching something appalling out of the corner of his eye.

His reflection echoed off the cold steel of a machine.

He blinked a few times in disbelief, taking a step forward and looking over the image reflected back at him. Lifting his chin to the side. Same strong jawline. Same vivid blue eyes. Almost perfection. It was remarkable that they could make a machine look so human. Only, as he took a glance around at the other Hybrids being created, he noticed a flaw in himself.

The skin beneath his ear all the way down his neck wasn't attached. There was a gaping hole showing off the wires, sprockets, and gears that made him up.

"No way he's gonna pass."

"What do you mean?" Damon asked, his voice remarkably similar to a human. He didn't understand what these men were talking about. He wasn't going to pass what? And what would happen if he didn't pass?

"Calm down, Damon." The man spoke in a soothing tone as he moved closer to the Hybrid, gently patting his back to reassure him. "He's wrong. You'll pass inspection. You only have a few minor detail flaws."

 _ **'Did you think your were right-side in,**_

 _ **Maybe inside out?'**_

What felt like hours had passed.

Hours since she watched her daughter be ripped from the pod and taken away.

The sheet of ice dancing along her skin was dissolving. Droplets of water rolling down over her chin and down her slender throat. She was still wearing the clothes she had on that day, _however long ago_.

"Sheila!" Bonnie screamed at the top of her lungs, more tears erupting from green eyes as she recalled what had just happened. It wasn't supposed to be like this. They were supposed to go underground and live a normal life as a family. That's all she ever wanted. All she was ever fighting for.

"Sheila! Kol!" Her voice quavered and cracked under the weight of emotion. Bones finally thawing enough to allow her motion back.

"Let me out!"

Her voice echoed off the metal walls of the containment vessel, bouncing around and nearly deafening her, but she didn't silence herself. Someone had to hear her, right? Someone had to save her. She couldn't die like this. Trapped in a pod. She had to get out and find her daughter. Rescue her from those men.

She couldn't just give up. It wasn't in Bonnie Bennett's nature.

So, she just kept pounding against the door. Ramming her small body into it. Banging her fists against the circular window. And sending up prayers to the Lord and Grams to help her out.

"Please." Her voice was a broken whimper. "Please. God, please."

Another bang against the steel door with the weight of her body and the door was creaking loudly before popping open. Bonnie was so unprepared for this that she stumbled out of the pod and fell onto the concrete. Barely able to catch herself due to the condition of her muscles. Worn down and unused for-how long? She didn't know.

What hit her first was the _overwhelming_ stench.

Death and decay. Thick and stagnant in the air. Sweeping in through her nostrils and filling her lungs. She couldn't help but gag and cough.

Pushing herself to shaky legs she leant against the pod to stable herself until she'd readjusted. It felt like years since her body had been fully functioning. Muscles hanging from brittle bone and weak. She was emaciated.

 _'What is that smell?'_

Bonnie didn't really want to know the answer to the question.

Eyes fixed on the vessel that had once held her daughter, she licked over heart-shaped lips and pondered on what to do. Kol had been in the pod next to her own. If she could somehow pry it open then at least she would have that hope to cling onto.

"Kol." She muttered to herself, swallowing hard and pushing away from the pod.

Bonnie tripped over her feet a few times before gathering her composure and re-teaching herself the basics of walking. It felt like she was carrying the weight of the world on unsteady knees. But, she needed to see him again. Needed to know that he was still alive and breathing.

"Please." She pleaded, standing up on her tiptoes and glancing through the circular window in his capsule. Hands shaking against metal on either side of the glass. What she saw caused her brow to furrow.

It was empty.

"What?" She voiced her confusion. "Where is he?"

Where would he have gone? Did they take him like they had Sheila? Why wouldn't he fight back? Why wouldn't he come and find her? Was he dead? All of these questions seemed to cascade through her at once. Bouncing around in her skull and only serving to further conflict her.

If Kol was out there alive he had to be trying to find her.

Maybe he had been awake when they took Sheila and he had escaped earlier and gone off to find her? _'Why wouldn't he get me out first?'_ Her mind nagged.

It didn't really matter now. All that mattered was getting the hell out of the Vault and finding her way to the surface. If she stopped to feel the sorrow rumbling deep in her gut then she would fall apart, and she couldn't do that.

She needed to be strong for the people she loved.

As she walked the hallway filled with vessels, she noted something off-putting. All of the other pods weren't empty like Kol's had been. No. They were worse. Bodies had been left to rot in them. Frozen in poses of desperation, trying to claw their way out. Skin slowly decomposing. Eyes lacking color.

Everyone around her was dead.

The Vault had become a modern-day catacomb.

"Shit!" Bonnie proclaimed as she toppled over something sprawled out on the ground. Falling to her hands and knees and almost crashing her jaw into concrete. It took a second to calm her breathing and then she was glancing over her shoulder to see what she had tripped over. Or, a better word, _**who**_ she had tripped over.

Leaning up against one of the vaults with his neck cranked to the side in an inhuman way was one of the workers from the vault. Jaw hanging open, teeth rotting, skin hardly there any longer. He'd been dead for a long time. And he reeked of spoiled flesh.

Her ears perked up and she shot up abruptly when she heard a low screeching noise accompanied with skittering feet.

"What the-" Bonnie frantically glanced around the hallway, reaching for the guard's club and gripping it tightly. Preparing to hit whatever was making the strange noises.

Again, she was pushing herself to her feet. Holding the club defensively in her hand and looking around for any sign of whoever or _whatever_ it was. Heart thundering painfully in her chest and vibrating throughout her body.

"Wh-who's there?"

 _ **'It doesn't matter who's to blame,**_

 _ **When all of the victims lose their names.'**_

"You call **THIS** a Hybrid? _Laughable_." With that, the man did laugh. Shaking his head in frustration with their utter stupidity. How many "defects" were they planning on making before they figured it out? "Toss him out in the alley and turn off the switch."

 _'Turn off what switch?'_

Damon Salvatore had never been an easily frightened man. He was slowly forgetting most of his human memories, but he still remembered that. His personality still firmly rooted in the machine he'd become. But, those words terrified him.

His mind went straight to the switch behind his ear that they had used to turn him on. If they flipped that switch off then what would happen to him? He would just be a pile of rotten flesh and rusty parts thrown in the garbage.

Struggling against them he tried to escape.

Pushing at their chests and clawing at their eyes, but it was to no avail. With one strong heave they were tossing the defective robot over the edge of the building and into the alleyway out back.

A three story fall.

 **'Maybe it's already too late, to tell if its luck or if its fate.'**

* * *

 **Author's Note :**

 **Another short chapter, I'm sorry. :( Life is crazy all the time but I'm writing again and easing back into it and hopefully y'all like this one! It's more a filler chapter and yeah the next chapter will show us the surface, what happened with Stefan, and Damon's outcome! So should be longer! :) Where do y'all think Kol is? What happened to Sheila? What is coming after Bonnie? Thoughts? Predictions?**

 **Love you guys!**

 **-Tracy Cook-**


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